Portal:Egypt/Selected biography/3



Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha (محمد علی پاشا المسعود بن آغا; محمد علي باشا / ALA-LC: Muḥammad ‘Alī Bāshā; Albanian: Mehmet Ali Pasha; Turkish: Kavalalı Mehmet Ali Paşa; 4 March 1769 – 2 August 1849) was an Ottoman Albanian commander who rose to the rank of Pasha, and became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan with the Ottomans' temporary approval. Though not a modern nationalist, he is regarded as the founder of modern Egypt because of the dramatic reforms in the military, economic and cultural spheres that he instituted. He also ruled Levantine territories outside Egypt. The dynasty that he established would rule Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt and Sudan until the 1952 coup d'état led by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser.